(no subject)

[skygiants]

I have a new short story out! It's an audio short for the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast titled "A Farce to Suit the New Girl" (transcript available here for those who don't do audio fiction) about Yiddish theater, wlw hostility, and the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.

Technically I think this is my first published non-sff piece, although in my heart it's set in the same world as the Yudah Cohen stories -- there may be nothing supernatural going on on the page, but writing it did thoroughly curse my computer, as evidenced by this snippet of my attempt to find/replace a character's name from 'Ester' to 'Ida' while editing the second draft:

'Ida was packing up Ida Ida of Ida Ida when Ida heard footsteps behind Ida, and sprang to Ida Ida. Ida heart was hammering in Ida chest, as it had Ida, on and off, Ida since Ida brought Ida news.

Ida woman who stood behind Ida took a startled Ida back. “Ah – you’re Ida costumer? Ida said you’re to Ida my measurements.”'

I have not been able to reverse-engineer what happened and I have not been able to successfully find/replace a set of words in LibreOffice since, but nonetheless I am very happy to have this short story up on LHMP! worth the curse!

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

I enjoyed this very much! (I read the transcription.) Best wishes for a good curse-break on the computer.

[skygiants]

Thank you so much, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! :D

(Every day it gets slightly more cursed but thus far not unusably so, so we keep trucking along....)

[sovay]

It's an audio short for the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast titled "A Farce to Suit the New Girl" (transcript available here for those who don't do audio fiction) about Yiddish theater, wlw hostility, and the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.

Mazel tov!

It's an audio short for the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast titled "A Farce to Suit the New Girl" (transcript available here for those who don't do audio fiction) about Yiddish theater, wlw hostility, and the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.

Wow.

[skygiants]

Thank you!! :D

[vass]

I have not been able to successfully find/replace a set of words in LibreOffice since

That is either a curse or a really impressive bug, the sort of thing that should be in a jar on a shelf somewhere.

Congrats on the story, I loved it.

[skygiants]

I'm so glad you liked the story!! (Every so often I forget and attempt another find/replace and the results are extremely funny every time.)

[troisoiseaux]

Ooh congrats!

[skygiants]

Thank you! \o/

[seekingferret]

That was a great listen!

[skygiants]

Thanks, I'm so glad you liked it!

[shadaras]

Ahhh that is delightful! :D (I read the transcript, I am so glad they provided one. <3)

Also omg that error is wild xD

[skygiants]

Thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed!! :D

AND ISN'T IT JUST

[sophia_sol]

as I already said, this story is GREAT, but also omg somehow I didn't even notice there was nothing supernatural on-page until you mentioned it here, lol!

and that computer curse created a beautiful piece of absurdist poetry for us all to appreciate, though I'm willing to bet that the difficulty of dealing with it for you was perhaps not entirely worth the delight it causes :P

[skygiants]

Someday some of these characters might run into the supernatural! today however there plates are full with perfectly ordinary political turmoil, lol

Fortunately it was pretty easy to frantically hit 'UNDO' and send everything back to the way it was, leaving it mostly funny for me as well! :P

[osprey_archer]

I just read the transcript! The story is a lot of fun. And clearly it DID siphon off its magical energy into cursing your computer... that is quite an impressive find and replace... it's like it replaced every word that had some of the same letters as Ester??

[skygiants]

Thank you, I'm so glad you enjoyed it!! And yeah, I think you are right ... it's looking for patterns! It's trying its best!

[davidgillon]

That's a rather fascinating story, and a fascinating bug! I had a search-and=replace get away from me on Friday that took searching down and checking every example of the relevant two characters, but it was nowhere near that bad.

[skygiants]

A two-character search-and-replace can definitely be a tricky operation! I have definitely done those before too but usually I understand how I am to blame and in this case I absolutely cannot figure it out.

[luzula]

Congratulations! \o/ Will definitely read or listen eventually.

[skygiants]

I hope you enjoy whenever you do! \o/

[china_shop]

This was really wonderful! I enjoyed the story and the reading so much.

but writing it did thoroughly curse my computer, as evidenced by this snippet of my attempt to find/replace a character's name from 'Ester' to 'Ida' while editing the second draft

Oh nooooo, how hilariously disastrous. /o\ Hope you've managed to sort it out!

[skygiants]

Thank you so much again, I'm so glad you liked it!

lol the bug is still the bug but fortunately I haven't had to find/replace anything major since ... dreading the next time I decide to rename a character in my novel draft however

[littlerhymes]

I read the transcript, what a great story. When she says 'in midwivery' - GRETA, I yelled.

Congratulations on your find/replace curse, that is truly something special lol.

[skygiants]

ahh thank you so much, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! and yes I honestly feel quite blessed that if I'm going to be cursed at least it's unique and funny

[minutia_r]

Okay I laughed out loud at this line: Greta had also, unfortunately, made a dutiful attempt to add jokes.

Poor Greta!

[skygiants]

Writing creatively is hard and she's never done it before! She's doing her best >.>

[sandrylene]

a) congrats, b) this was really interesting, and I enjoyed the sort of central difference in characters' politics, c) omg, it's benign as curses go, but wow, that is pretty out there. Like, trying to think systemically what it possibly could've been executing is just '...??? nope."

[skygiants]

b) thank you so much! yeah, I had fun trying to write two very opposing views while attempting not to pick a side myself c) it's SO funny -- I'll demo it for you sometime if you want, it's still happening as of the last time I checked and yields wild results every time

[obopolsk]

Congrats on the publication! Excited to read it soon.

I started using LibreOffice and appreciate the rec—and very much appreciate the warning not to try a find/replace!

[skygiants]

Thank you!! I hope you enjoy it whenever you do :D

(and tbh I'll be very curious if you ever do end up stumbling over the same error! though I'm glad LibreOffice is working well for you in the meantime 😂)